NEW DELHI: Reliance Jio is likely to spend more than Rs 1000 crores on commercial launch, according to a report by Exchange4media.

The report said that Jio’s mobile phone services are expected to be formally launched sometime next month.

Jio has had pan-India 4G airwaves in the 2300 Mhz band since 2010, but has not launched commercial services to date, with technological limitations of its airwaves and an under-developed handset ecosystem stalling launch plans.

It was widely expected to launch in the middle of last year, and then the end of 2015, but it only soft-launched its services for its employees and their families on December 27.

Jio has previously said that the fiscal year starting April 1 will be its first full fiscal year of commercial operations. By that time, Airtel, which has already rolled out its 4G services in over 350 cities, would have expanded further, the same being the case with Vodafone and Idea's high-speed broadband operations.

Jio has been planning to position itself as a digital content company to make it distinct from other mobile phone operators in an intensely competitive market, with content streaming packages a key element of this strategy. Jio is currently rolling out a pan-India digital services business with digital content, applications and services. It already holds 751.10 MHz of liberalised spectrum across the 800MHz, 1800MHz and 2300MHz bands.

The launch of Reliance Jio Infocomm will intensify competition which will squeeze the market share, EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) margins and credit metrics of incumbents, credit ratings agency India Ratings and Research recently said.

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After PSU banks, the government is likely to infuse capital in two chronically ill telecom PSUs BSNL and MTNL, and the Union Cabinet is likely to take a decision on 4G spectrum allocation to them by the third week of the current month after DoT places the note before it for consideration.

At a high-level meeting at the PMO late Tuesday, it was also decided that the two telcos will frame a Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) to reduce their employee strength, which will be followed by a reduction in the retirement age to 58.